Hideho Okada

As a physician–scientist, Dr. Hideho Okada has been dedicated to brain tumor immunology and the development of effective immunotherapy for brain tumor patients for over 20 years. He is a Professor of Neurosurgery at University of California, San Francisco, a member of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and serves as an associate editor for Neuro-Oncology. He received his MD and PhD from Nagoya University School of Medicine. Dr. Okada conducted one of the first immune gene therapy trials in patients with malignant glioma, and led the team that was one of the first labs to discover cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes in glioma-associated and glioma-specific antigens. Dr. Okada’s seminal discovery of CTL epitopes in glioma-associated antigens and the work on the mechanisms underlying the adjuvant effects of poly-ICLC enabled him to launch novel glioma vaccine trials in combination with poly-ICLC as an adjuvant. These efforts have also been supported by his mechanistic studies delineating the role of anintegrin receptor very late activation antigen (VLA)-4 and the chemokine CXCL10 in facilitating entry of CTLs to the brain tumor site. Dr. Okada has translated these discoveries into a number of innovative immunotherapy clinical studies in vaccine trials for both adult and pediatric brain tumor patients. Dr. Okada’s discoveries have also led to two currently active multicenter trials (NCT02078648 and NCT02960230), each involving 15 or more sites. Most recently, Dr. Okada has developed a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)viii and cloned a high affinity T-cell receptor against H3.3K27M, both of which are glioma-specific antigens. Dr. Okada’s team has also pioneered in discoveries of novel immunoregulatory mechanisms in gliomas, such as one mediated by myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) and mutations of the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) enzymes IDH1 and IDH2. To improve radiologic evaluation criteria for brain tumor patients undergoing immunotherapy, Dr. Okada leads an international group of brain tumor immunotherapy experts to develop novel iRANO criteria.